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Project Management

What are the possible impacts on US refineries processing shale oils?

Turner, Mason & Co.: Mayes, J. M.

No singular event has had as significant an impact on the quality of refinery feedstocks as the shale revolution. Not only are shale crudes, such as Eagle Ford and Bakken, generally lighter than other..

Use cloud-based document collaboration to complete projects

EMC Corp.: Baird, S.

Capital and maintenance projects require the management of thousands of documents, which can be more easily accomplished with cloud-based solutions.

HP Reliability: Does Pareto’s 80/20 rule apply to reliability engineers?

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Bloch, Heinz P.

In the 1970s, an oil refinery discovered that 7% of its 3,200 process pumps experienced a disproportionate share of the facility’s yearly pump outage events. Slightly over 60% of the money spent ..

HP Petrochemicals: Update on ethylene tube coating technology

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: DuBose, Ben

Improving the efficiency of ethylene furnaces has been a long-time goal for olefin manufacturers. The steam cracking or pyrolysis of hydrocarbons to yield ethylene also coproduces unwanted coke that a..

HP Project Management: Outsourcing creates opportunities beyond engineering

Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions US Inc.: Thorne, A.

The present “shale revolution” has generated opportunities in the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) industry that even a few years ago would have seemed fanciful. Billions of d..

HP Viewpoint: Going our way?—How the US will benefit from natural gas and fuel cell technology

Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association: Markowitz, M. B.

A remarkable convergence is taking place in North America, as rising natural gas production meets the growing market for both stationary fuel cells providing power to businesses and the utility grid, ..

HP People

ABB’s board of directors unanimously nominated Peter Voser to succeed Hubertus von Grünberg as chairman.

Total inks new labor agreement with global union

A committee made up of members from Total and IndustriALL will meet annually to ensure that the agreement has been implemented and to identify and promote best practices.

DCS migration: Lessons learned

TOTAL Port Arthur refinery: Conley, R.

In 2005, TOTAL’s Port Arthur refinery (PAR), like many present-day refining and petrochemical facilities, found itself with an obsolete, at-capacity distributed control system (DCS). As shown in ..

Avoid counterproductive project management practices

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Bloch, Heinz P.

For many years, reliability-focused engineers have observed flawed procurement processes for mechanical equipment. Many requirements are supposedly aimed at the lowest possible lifecycle cost; however..